Typically, in the freight shipment industry, shipments of freight are received from a shipper by the freight carrier, accumulated at freight terminals where they are sorted by shipment destination and then loaded onto tractor-trailer trucks for shipment. At a receiving terminal, the shipments of freight are unloaded and sorted for trans-shipment or delivery. Usually, the freight shipment is arranged on one or more pallets, and the loading and unloading is handled by lift trucks. Each shipment of freight is normally assigned an identifying number, and this number is used for tracking the freight from its origin to its destination.
Typically, the cost for shipping a commodity is dependent on several factors including the distance the shipment is moving, the weight of the shipment, the density of the commodity comprising the shipment, the degree to which the shipment is susceptible to damage, the value of the shipment, and the loadability and handling characteristics of the shipment. The last four criteria are generally used to classify the commodity into a particular freight classification. For example, the National Motor Freight Classification (NMFC) classifies commodities into 18 possible classes ranging from 50 to 500. The higher the freight classification, the higher the shipping rate for every 100 pounds of the commodity shipped.
It is generally common practice for the shipper to provide the freight carrier with a description and/or freight classification of the commodity being shipped. The freight carrier then uses this information along with other factors to determine the price for shipping the freight to its final destination. In some cases, the shipper may classify the shipment of freight in the wrong classification. As a result, the freight carrier may ship a commodity at a lower than normal shipping rate, which can result in the freight carrier not receiving full value for the services rendered. To help catch misclassified shipments, many freight carriers spot check the freight at the freight terminal prior to loading freight onto the trucks. However, spot checking is inefficient and can fail to catch many of the misclassified shipments.
Thus, there still exists a need for a method and system for determining if a shipment of freight has been correctly classified by the shipper.